A MAN has undergone emergency surgery after being shot in the chest in Birmingham.

Police said the victim, in his early 20s, had suffered “serious chest wounds” in the incident in Gooch Street, in Highgate, shortly after 3.20pm yesterday.

Residents said the wounded man staggered across a small area of grassland and across the road before collapsing in the driveway of a house where he was found slumped on the ground.

Officers cordoned off the area at the junction of Gooch Street and Cumberland Avenue, near a parade of shops, as the hunt for the gunman was launched.

Shocked residents said it was the second shooting in the area in about a week.

As police began house-to-house inquiries, groups of residents gathered near the cordon to discuss the incident.

Decorator Keiven Warton, 28, from Highgate, said: “There was another shooting further down the road last week. It’s mad that something like this has happened in broad daylight.”

Eric Beeston, a 65-year-old retired labourer, said: “I heard that someone had been shot. All the area has been cordoned off. It’s usually okay here, there is some drug crime but that is no different from any where else.”

Another 65-year-old man, who didn’t want to give his name, said: “This is a shock. It’s not a bad area.”

Specialist search officers were drafted to carry out a fingertip search of the scene for clues to the identity of the gunmen.

A West Midlands Police spokesman said: “Officers were called at 3.22pm yesterday to reports of a shooting.

“A man believed to be in his early 20s, was injured and taken to hospital with serious chest wounds.”